


sift and pour

by kamja



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Comedy, Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamja/pseuds/kamja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toma tries to bake a cake for Jun with Aiba's help. A romance and a bromance double feature!</p>
            </blockquote>





	sift and pour

“Well?”

“Hmmm,” Aiba chewed thoughtfully. He rolled his eyes from side to side as if searching for the right thing to say.

Toma held up a hand. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to strain yourself.”

Aiba swallowed. “It’s better than last time.”

But Toma was already deep in the cookbook once again, and he didn’t hear. He really didn’t think baking a cake would be this hard. First, he left it in the oven too long and the bottom burned. Then, he got some eggshell mixed in, and the entire thing was...crunchy. On this last attempt, the cake didn’t rise at all, and it looked as dense as a wet sponge.

“Is there such a thing as mixing the batter too much?”

“Sure,” Aiba answered offhandedly. There was such a thing as too much of anything in cooking, after all. He picked at pieces of frosting. Crappy cake aside, that part turned out delicious.

Toma sighed. He just wanted to make a nice Christmas cake for Jun. He looked jealously at the photos in the cookbook. Christmas Eve was tomorrow. “Don’t you have a restaurant trick or something?”

Aiba stopped eating the frosting and thought for a minute. “I can teach you pancakes.”

“Pancakes?!”

“That’s a cake, isn’t it?”

“I guess, but it’s supposed to be romantic, not breakfast!”

“Um, I dunno what you’re thinking, but breakfast the morning after is pretty --”

Toma impatiently flipped the page. “Let’s try this one, angel food cake.”

Aiba grinned, but helped crack the eggs anyway. “Because Jun’s such an angel?”

At 2 in the morning, Aiba woke up from his place on Toma’s couch. The kitchen light was still on.

“Happy birthday,” Toma greeted from his place at the table. He was staring at a cake on the cooling rack. Aiba came over to sit down next to him.

“Have you done it?”

“I dunno. I’m too scared to taste it.”

Aiba gave Toma a sideways glance and picked off a piece from the edge.

“Dude.”

Toma put his head into his hands. He might have cried, if he wasn’t so tired.

That evening, Jun came over for dinner as planned. He brought a bottle of wine and some DVDs. They ate at the kitchen table and talked about work and a weekend trip up north for some snowboarding. After they finished eating, Toma shyly brought out a white Christmas cake from the fridge.

“Hey, what’s this?” Jun grinned as Toma set it on the table along with a knife and some plates. It was decorated with strawberries and sprinkles.

“Merry Christmas,” Toma said, hiding his hands behind his back. He was too afraid to sit down again, so he stood there.

Jun looked up. He was so impressed, and that look on his face suddenly made the whole ordeal worth it. “Did you make this?”

“Uhh, Aiba helped me. Take -- take a slice.”

The knife went in, and when Jun pulled out a piece to reveal the interior, he burst out laughing.

“This is totally Aiba.”

It was a Christmas cake, all right. It was a half-dozen pancakes stacked together with frosting. Toma shifted his weight and looked down at his feet. “I wanted to make something really nice, y’know, like chiffon or red velvet or angel food...”

And then Jun was standing right in front of him, taking Toma’s face in his hands. They stared at each other for a moment.

“It is really nice. It’s the nicest cake anyone has ever made for me.”

They kissed in the middle of the kitchen, where just hours before, a layer of flour had settled on every surface and Toma had gone through two packages of eggs. Jun kissed his cheeks, too, and when they pulled apart his licked his lips.

“You still have sugar on you,” Jun said slowly, and his grinned again, this time a little more devilishly. “You got any leftover frosting?”


End file.
